Sport is not an economic activity like any other. Sport is about sharing, surpassing oneself, exchange, respect. Sport is about emotions. Football is a game rather than just a product or a market. It is a spectacle rather than just a business.

Replace "sport" and "football" with "painting" or "programming" and one sees how meaningless of a statement this is. Indeed, an "economic activity" is virtually defined by the very terms which are proffered forth to except it from so cold a classification.

If President Platini would have used "financial activity" instead of "economic activity," I would be closer to agreeing with him. Finance, like economics, is built upon notions of human behavior for its theories, but finance concerns itself almost exclusively with money, and this narrow focus seems to be the thing to which the President takes umbrage. I still think the sentiment would be misguided, but it would at least be a bit more on target.

Unlike Jewel, if I could tell the world just one thing, it would be that economics is far too rich a subject only to concern itself with money.